Category: Writing for Other Sites
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SUPERNOVA!
Pardon me, I’m a little excited. When I logged onto my computer this morning, I found that every astronomer and astronomy fan was talking about the same thing: a new observation of a probable white dwarf supernova in M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy. This is exciting because M82 is practically a neighbor in…
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Sinners in the hands of an angry GLaDOS
It’s one of those nagging thoughts many of us have had: is our existence a reality or an illusion? Philosophers and scientists have grappled with the question, though today much of the discussion focuses on a related question: do we live in a computer simulation? In my (first hopefully of multiple) essays for Aeon magazine,…
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A glowing filament shows us where the dark matter hides
Astronomers have identified a filament in the cosmic web, which is the pattern formed by dark matter. That web in turn dictates the distribution of galaxies, since the dark matter attracts ordinary matter — atoms — through its gravity. However, it’s hard to spot the filaments connecting the different halos of dark matter, because…
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Some planet-like Kuiper belt objects don’t play “Nice”
When we talk about big advances in planetary science, we often are thinking about Mars rovers or the discovery of exoplanets. However, one area where we’ve learned a lot over the last few decades is the Kuiper belt: a region beyond the orbit of Neptune inhabited by small bodies of ice and rock. Before 1992,…
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Madame Wu and the backward Universe
(Since my weekly round-up experiment seems to have failed horribly, I’m going to try to go back to linking and summarizing individual articles I’ve written around the web on this blog. We’ll see if I keep it up!) Chien-Shiung Wu is one of those physicists that everyone should know about, but not enough do. A…
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Two weeks in review (October 27-November 9)
Evidently I forgot to post one of these roundups last week, so here’s two weeks’ worth of writing all at once! Also, I have a new sticker design you can order, for those of you (like me) who don’t willingly run for exercise, but want to feel you’ve accomplished something anyway. At least in a…
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The week in review (October 20-26)
I had a wonderful time at GeekGirlCon; thanks again to Dr. Rubidium, AKA Nick Fury, for putting together the DIY Science Zone, and to everyone who made it a great event. I have a more formal wrap-up post in the works, but in the meantime, have some science writing. The river of spacetime (Galileo’s Pendulum):…
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The week in review (October 13 – 19)
I’m at GeekGirlCon this weekend, so I’m busy with non-writing activities as part of the DIY Science Zone. Thanks to our Fearless Leader Dr. “Nick Fury” Rubidium for putting our part of the event together! Where Nature Hides the Darkest Mystery of All (Nautilus): Even though there’s no solid barrier, the event horizon of a…
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Two weeks in review (September 29 – October 12, 2013)
My black holes class and other responsibilities ate my brain the last two weeks, so I forgot to post a “week in review” last week. So, here’s the highlights from the last two weeks. If it’s more heavily weighted toward black holes even than usual, that’s hardly surprising. Of fire and ice and Harlow Shapley…
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The week in review (September 22-28)
I spent much of the week sick, but that doesn’t stop me. I care about you, people. All black holes, great and small (Galileo’s Pendulum): As my regular readers have probably figured out, I love black holes. I could probably find an excuse to write about them most days. So, why not take an online…
Bowler Hat Science 